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Poll The Muppet Show 50th Anniversary Special

How do you rate The Muppet Show 50th Anniversary Special?

  • The most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational!

    Votes: 4 30.8%

  • 9

    Votes: 6 46.2%

  • 9

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 8

    Votes: 3 23.1%

  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 5

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • It's like a kind of torture to have to watch the show!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    13
The Nth Doctor

The Nth Doctor

Wanderer in the Fourth Dimension
Premium Member
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Sabrina Carpenter and Seth Rogen are among the executive producers for an upcoming 50th anniversary special for The Muppet Show that will be released next year, with Carpenter as the special guest star. Bill Barretta, Dave Goelz, Eric Jacobson, Peter Linz, David Rudman and Matt Vogel will be the main Muppet performers. The special could act as a backdoor pilot of a potential revival of the show.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this news. If this special has the same high quality of writing as The Muppets Mayhem (the only Muppets show or film that I've enjoyed since The Muppets Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island), then this might actually be good. On the other hand, I utterly despised The Muppets (the '10s series). So it could go either way.
 
the G-man said:
The Muppets died with Jim Henson. Everything since has been MINO
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I mostly agree with the exception of The Muppets Christmas Carol and The Muppets Mayhem (and to a lesser degree, The Muppets Treasure Island). The rest I freely ignore.
 
Jim could have died the following year, ten years, twenty years later.

The Muppets still would have continued without him and Frank Oz at the helm.

The whole purpose of Jim's trip to Florida was to discuss selling The Muppet brand to Disney, as he wanted to move on to other projects.

It was all set to be done by the end of the year before his untimely passing.

As his death did was postpone the sale until his family and other members of the Jim Henson Workshop could come to a reasonable sale price.
 
The song "Man or Muppet" deserved its Academy Award and its other awards as well. That buries the premise that the Muppets died with Henson. For our continued enrichment, they live on. I'll certainly check out the special in February.
 
CorporalCaptain said:
The song "Man or Muppet" deserved its Academy Award and its other awards as well. That buries the premise that the Muppets died with Henson. For our continued enrichment, they live on. I'll certainly check out the special in February.
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I hate that song and that film. Doesn't help that I despise Jason Segal's acting.

Kai the spy said:
Muppets Tonight is criminally underrated, and that's a hill I'll happily die on.
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That's true. I only caught a couple of episodes at the time but I did watch the whole thing awhile ago and largely enjoyed it. Alas.
 
The Nth Doctor said:
I mostly agree with the exception of The Muppets Christmas Carol and The Muppets Mayhem (and to a lesser degree, The Muppets Treasure Island). The rest I freely ignore.
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MCC and MTI were largely carried on the backs of their human stars, IMO (Caine and Curry), however.
 
the G-man said:
MCC and MTI were largely carried on the backs of their human stars, IMO (Caine and Curry), however.
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While I agree Caine's and Curry's performances were crucial to their films' creative successes, I disagree that they largely carried those films.

The Muppet performances in The Muppet Christmas Carol are fantastic, both the classic characters and the original creations (i.e. the three spirits). All of the main characters are well suited for their roles, but that's especially  true for Kermit, Robin, and Gonzo & Rizzo. The latter of whom do a lot of heavy work as narrator and Greek chorus and I cannot imagine the film working as well as it does without their sublime performances. On top of all of that, the film is a loyal adaptation of the novella and arguably one of best committed to film (and I know I'm not the only person who believes that).

It's been awhile since I've watched Muppet Treasure Island so I can't comment as strongly but my recollection is that its Muppet cast are all well suited for their respective roles, even if the adaptation isn't as loyal as The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Edited to add: I can't believe I forgot to mention the music. The soundtrack for The Muppet Christmas Carol is as excellent as The Muppet Movie and it's no coincidence Paul Williams was the composer for both. Additionally, composing the songs for The Muppet Christmas Carol was deeply personal for Williams because he just begun his recovery from substance abuse and the film was his one chance to get his life back on track. Music is often at its best when fueled by personal demons and that's greatly reflected in this soundtrack.
 
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I still remain cautiously optimistic. Rowlf, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, and Statler & Waldorf all sound pitch perfect (refreshing for the latter since they've sounded off for years), but Kermit doesn't sound quite right. We'll see if that improves in the full special.

The few jokes we hear are mostly decent and nothing is cringeworthy (yet). Nice touch on the Bobo the Bear gag since he didn't exist during the original show and wasn't introduced until Muppets Tonight. At least, I hope that was a neat gag...
 
I just watched the special and I have to say...I loved it.

Without giving away too much (is there such thing as spoilers for The Muppet Show?), I think the special did a great job of recapturing the show's Vaudeville spirit while mixed with modern sentiments. All of the sketches are fun and most jokes landed just right (I could've done without the Maya Rudolph cutaways). Sabrina Carpenter was an inspired choice as the guest star because she both reaches younger audiences and clearly holds genuine affection for the Muppets.

I was cautiously optimistic this whole time but I'm happy the special works and I really hope this leads to a revival.
 
It was a fun watch. I particularly loved Seth Rogen's comment at the end (total callout to Trekkers):

"If I'm being honest, I'm a little insulted they were gonna cut me but they kept this armadillo in the tutu in there. Never even seen that guy. That guy's not canon!"
 
WarpFactorZ said:
It was a fun watch. I particularly loved Seth Rogen's comment at the end (total callout to Trekkers):

"If I'm being honest, I'm a little insulted they were gonna cut me but they kept this armadillo in the tutu in there. Never even seen that guy. That guy's not canon!"
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That was a great gag. :lol:

I admire Rogen's restraint of including himself in the special and I was surprised how I actually enjoyed his two scenes, despite not being a of his. Which made Rudolph's scenes stand even more poorly.

Commander Troi said:
Great fun! I missed these guys.
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More importantly, I miss this version of them.

oktay said:
www.latimes.com

'The Muppet Show' special brings back the magic of the original — and a couple of Muppets

Director Alex Timbers spoke about helming the Muppet special that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the show and the return of Rizzo and Bean Bunny.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
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From the article:

Logistically, the execution of this special entailed figuring out the appropriate scale for the Muppet Theater. For that, Timbers and the team found the original blueprints from 1976.​
​
“We really studied scale,” he says. “A lot of the Muppet performers felt that when people have re-created the Muppet Theater in the past, the scale hasn’t totally been right.”​
​
With the correct measurements for the sets also came guidelines on how to shoot the Muppets. Timbers learned that if you’re dealing with a Muppet to Muppet scene, everything has to be in 3/4 scale. If there’s a human in the scene with the Muppet, it’s a 7/8 scale.​
​
“There are all these little tricks to make sure that a mug feels the right size for Kermit and for that desk to feel the right height,” he says. “The math of it is really challenging, but also really rewarding.” These numbers make a crucial difference considering the Muppets range in sizes. “Thog is huge. He would dwarf you and me, but then Rizzo is so tiny,” Timbers adds.​
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I absolute love this attention to detail.
 
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